Chapter one

November 4^th 1995

 

Selma leans back sinking into the floppy leather upholstery, stopping only when her pale feet disappear between the cushions. Except for the videogame the clubhouse is quiet.

 

Her boots and jacket lay buried somewhere in the cramped cluttered space between the dozen or so boxes stacked around the room. Everything is covered in a layer of dust.

Selma suddenly looks up when she hears the growl but just as quickly goes back to her game.

Shaking her head she whispers. “Don’t worry. It’s just the wind blowing tree branches against the roof. Yeah, just branches.”

 

A stack of boxes, overturned milk crate and a large bag traps Selma on the old couch. Selma leans forward and knocks over the bag. It falls against the dusty stack of boxes causing an explosion of dust to float into the moonlight tumbling in from the open window. A handful of dream catchers shiver in a breeze that blows the dust away.

The boxes cast strange dark shadows that puncture the light streaming across the door.  For a moment the shadows look alive, but then the boxes settle and the shadows freeze.

 

Selma forehead creases with worry, as the growling starts again and gets louder and more ferocious. Selma’s hands shake as she lowers her Gameboy awkwardly resting it in her lap. She inspects the room and finds herself completely alone.

She sits up trying to focus her tired eyes on the Gameboy but the shaking spreads from her hands up her arms to her shoulders.

 

She shakes her head as other newer sounds fly past; the sound of a train running over its tracks, of a girl yelling out food orders and of a car honking at a swearing pedestrian.

 

Selma doesn’t bother to explain what she’s hearing this time. It is no television set, no radio. It is  not her imagination, not a ghost and not a prank.

It was the sound of the beginning of the end; Selma is falling asleep, a sleep filled with visions she couldn’t control.

With every tick of her necklace watch the shed seems to change; the shadows jumps, the moonlight dances, the shutters groan, the wind whispers. She couldn’t fall asleep, she hadn’t escaped yet, not really.

 

Fear alone, Selma realized wasn’t a strong enough motivator. It faded the longer you waited, as the comfort of normal life and soft beds invade your senses, killing the darker parts of your imagination. The parts that hold your superstitions, the parts that keep you safe. 

 

Selma blinks, she can still see the up-side-down milk-crate and the unfinished drink it supports. Selma can still taste the sweetness of its sugar and the bitterness of something that should have kept her awake. Selma’s vision blurs as she tries to remember how the Center managed to drug her. She hadn’t eaten any of their food.

 

 

 

Selma looked between the bottle of green juice and her nurse lifting her eyebrow in question. At her nurse’s prodding she leaned forward in her stool eyeing the drink with suspicion.

“It’s something new I put together for you.” Nurse Jenny said turning away from the light that seeped through the barred windows. 

 

Selma looked doubtfully at the drink and then shook her head warily.

“It’ll help keep you up.” The old gray nurse whispered encouragingly.

Looking at her old friend Selma nodded in understanding. She grabbed the bottled drink unfastening its lid.

 

"Thanks, I'll see you later. The usual place, make sure no one follows you this time." Selma said gesturing with the bottle before taking a sip.

Making a face she forced down the shockingly bitter drink. 

“I’m sorry Jenny but this is gross, where’s the sugar.” Selma said eyeing the bowl sitting on the counter.

“Sorry but beggars can’t be choosers.” Jenny said pulling the bowl out of reach as Selma tried to grab it.

“If you can find someone else to knock together some meds to keep you awake then you can ask them to poison you with sugar.” Jenny said sugar like it were a swear word.

“You’d better get going now.” She said shoeing Selma out the room.

 

Swinging her bag over her shoulder Selma left the nurse station wondering what the old lady laced her drink with this time. Selma grinned as she took out a packet of sugar from her pocket. 

Ripping it open she poured it into the green drink, glancing back to be sure Jenny wasn’t watching. Satisfied Selma recapped the bottle. Giving it a good shake she walked down the hall.

 

 

“I don’t get it,” Said a figure leaning against the wall. He wore a baseball cap low over his face. “You know she puts her own sugar in her drinks, so why bother banning it?” His arms were crossed over his chest he looked about sixteen. His raggedy black hoodie, gray pants and bare feet clashed with the Center’s hospital clean floors.

“Hello Liam, you don’t have to understand it doesn’t affect your mission.” Jenny said unfazed by his sudden appearance, she was used to it.

“I remember Will saying it was because your kid and your dad had diabetes. Which doesn’t explain much because Selma isn’t your daughter and sugar has little effect on her.” Liam said coolly walking over to the counter.

“It’s not like she’d become diabetic by eating sugar either. I looked it up.” He picked up a spoon and began to stir the sugar in the bowl.

“I know.” Jenny said quietly.

 

She stared at the boy before whispering, “You really are a different people.”

“I only look like him. Will might be good at reading people but he’s weak and sentimental. I’m stronger then he is.” The boy said picking up a spoonful of sugar. Jenny raised her eyebrow as he bent close to smell the sugar.

 

Liam frowned it didn’t smell sugary like he thought it would. He tasted the spoonful and widened his eyes in surprise it was sweet. This world was strange and wonderful in ways he hadn’t predicted. How could anyone give this up?

 

“Don’t confuse me with Will. He was stupid enough to make a deal with me. Stupid enough to think magic and a girl was equal in any way to this.” He mumbled.

“I’d never confuse you with Will. Will has a soul.” Jenny said pointedly.

“He has a soul? So what. I’m the one getting you what you want and Will’s incapacitated because he trying to be heroic. How do you know that Selma and Will want the same thing?” Liam said dropping the spoon. It fell against the sugar bowl leaving a mess. It was the first time Liam had shown emotion since Jenny had met him, it seems she’d hit a nerve.

“Its not like anyone asked her what she wanted.” Liam continued.

 

“That there is something you could learn from Will, sacrifice. Will knows what he’s given up. You aren’t able to understand.” Jenny said watching Liam study the sugar on the counter. She was half expecting him to lick the counter or the pen he was using to prod the pile of sugar. Liam had only recently discovered his taste buds and was still experimenting.

 

Liam scowled. “Would you stop comparing us? I don’t care why anyone sacrifices anything as long as it doesn’t interfere with the plan and as long as the plan gets me what I want, my freedom.” Liam said angrily.

“You people have no idea what freedom is worth. But that’s because you’re from this world. Whatever, as long as you’re committed. You are committed to doing whatever it takes aren’t you?” Liam asked pointedly.

“You know I am.” Jenny said giving the boy a look but he’d already disappeared.

The sugary mess he’d made had gone with him; it was like he was never there at all.

 

 

Selma slipped into the bathroom and kicked opened each stall. Content that the bathroom was deserted she took the maintenance ‘closed for service’ sign from under one of the sinks and attached it to the outside door.

 

Selma pulled on the chain around her neck checking the watch that hung on it. She pressed it to her lips.

“I’m sorry Will. They’ll kill me if I stay.” Selma whispered.

 

 Liam materialized behind her the moment she touched the watch. He watched Selma curiously with his hands in his pockets blinking in and out of existence like a flickering light bulb, he didn’t want her to see him watching.

 

Selma smiled wistfully before she hurriedly replaced the watch; there wasn’t time to for sentiments. There never really was. The boy tilted his head at her and disappeared when she turned toward him. Selma frowned she thought she felt someone standing behind her.

 

Selma unzipped her bag and laid out some of her escape tools for what she hoped was the last time. She quietly hummed a song as she tied up her long copper hair. From her collection of escape tools she chose a tiny screwdriver she had taken from her aunt on her last visit home.

 

Selma stepped on the trashcan as she unscrewed the lock on the bathroom window. She pulled out the secure looking grate prying it off and tossed her bag out the moment the small window was open.  Selma smiled as she heard a thud and guessed it landed on the shelter that held the Center’s back-up generator. She tossed the grate on top of her bag.

 

Selma then dropped back into the bathroom and quickly stashed her escape tools; the screwdriver, a set of lock picks and a security key card behind the sink, just in case she needed a second or third chance at escape.

 

Using the trashcan and the hand dryer as footholds Selma lifted her self out the small window. She noticed the shoe prints she left on the dryer but decided that no one would notice it until it was too late.

 

Selma carefully lowered herself onto the generator. She patted the building goodbye, replaced the grate, grabbed her bag and leaped off the shelter landing gracefully on her feet in the building’s shade.

Selma stayed in there for a moment longer gathering herself before she peaked around the edge.

 

The bright sun burned her tired eyes as she assessed the distance between the shelter and the cut she’d made in the fence. She’d been awake for a long time now, inhumanly long and she was tired of feeling tired all the time.

 

The fear that she wouldn’t wake up again was getting harder and harder to remember. She could feel time slipping away. Her tired eyes begged to stay closed with every blink.

 

The tick-tick-tick of her watch was the only thing that reminded her; this was her only chance to be free. She would not let them put her under and she would not let them kill her. She would fight and she would run.

 

Selma sprinted across the grassy yard pulling down her baseball hat over her blood shot eyes. She kept running, slipping through the cut in the chain link fence and past the thin wooded area that surrounded the Center until she found the dirt path.

 

Selma ran with a smile on her face letting her skin soak in the warm sunlight. She hopped over a log and giggled nervously as she splashed into puddle. She half expected someone to step out from behind a tree and scold her. Selma smiled when nothing happened. She stepped out of the puddle and began to run again.

 

In just a few hours her nurse would finish her shift at the Center and get her out of the city with a new identity, new home and new life.

A small voice in the back of Selma’s mind whispered that infected people had no lives and that they were never safe no matter where or how far they ran. Selma squashed the thought and kept on running.

 

 

“Hello Will. How are you feeling to day?” Nurse Jenny said as the large heavy door closed behind her. She frowned at the bare white walls, the glaring bright lights and the swivelling black camera. This wasn’t a hospital room it was a prison cell. Jenny walked forward to the figure sitting on the only furniture in the room, the bed.

“I was just with Selma. It’s been a while since you’ve seen her, almost four months I would guess.” Jenny said sitting down beside Will who looked straight ahead in a daze. As far the Center knew he’d been like that for months.

 

Jenny sighed glancing at the camera. “Oh dear it looks like you’ve got something on your face.” Jenny said reaching into her purse. Instead of taking out a Kleenex Jenny pulled out a necklace Will once gave her as a present.

 

“Seriously? You call me now? How am I supposed to work if I have to keep pulled back to you?” Liam complained the moment he appeared. It took a moment for him to notice Will.

“NO.” He said crossing his arm, “No way, I’m not going back.” He hissed at Jenny.

“I need to talk to him.” Jenny said once the camera shut down. Liam had that effect on security cameras.

 

“What about?” Liam asked scowling.

“He needs to be ready for when she goes to your world. If she doesn’t make it or if they don’t meet up the deals off and then you’d have to go back forever.”

“I get it.” He sighs “I hate this par"” His words are cut off as he disappears into a bright light.

 “Let go of me. Ugggh.” Will yelled jumping back away from the light. He took a moment to steady himself as he examined his new surroundings. 

 

“The Center.” He said relaxing before he turned to Jenny and smiled “Hey Jenny Benny. What do I owe this wonderful vacation?”

Jenny smiled back and simply said. “It’s time.”

“You mean Selma’s coming?” He said standing up he smiled wide. If Jenny didn’t know better she would of bet he’d break into a dance like he had when he was younger. Thankfully he resisted the urge if he felt it.

 

“Not yet, but we’re close.” Jenny said smiling at Will.

Will suddenly stopped smiling. “There something wrong isn’t there?” He said watching Jenny carefully.

“No problem. She just needs to fall asleep so we can do our magic. You know remove the hypnotic suggestion.” Jenny said quietly.

“You want her to fall asleep! How are you going to do that I mean without her seeing Liam and without the center getting their hands on her?” He said suspiciously. He subconsciously touched the pink scar that stretched from his right hand to his collarbone.

“Liam can be very sneaky.” Jenny hinted.

“I wouldn’t rely on his powers. They’re not as good as you think.” Will said sceptically sitting down again.

 

Jenny pursed her lips  “That’s what this is for.” Jenny said holding out a bright yellow pill.

“Is that the back up plan?” Will said unimpressed

“Yup, by the time Selma will notice the sedative she’ll already be asleep.”  Jenny said nodding.

“She won’t need a sedative, she’ll fall asleep in two hours trust me.” She continued.

“I wouldn’t count on it, she’s stronger then that. You’d better have one heck of a full proof back-up-back-up plan” Will said frowning. “Even then it might not work.”

“Will, I think you’re overestimating Selma.”

 

“I’m not Jenny. I know her better than anyone.” Will said staring off into space. Jenny waited a moment for him to finish but whatever made Will himself was gone. Which meant Liam was back, somewhere.

 

 

Selma’s leg twitched begging her to speed up, but she couldn’t not in this neighbourhood, someone would notice her running, especially when the police got involved.

 

Selma stopped at a bus stop fighting the instinct to keep moving and sat down. Selma waited for what seemed to be forever before the bus pulled up at a painfully slow crawl. Sitting at the back corner of the bus she fingered her watch necklace thinking about the one person she would miss when she’d run away.

 

Selma took the bus to a more crowded part of town, a part where she could blend in. She wandered for a few blocks to make sure she didn’t have a tail but she couldn’t shake the feeling she was being watched.

 

Liam put on his hat and pulled up his hood as he stepped onto the road in front of Selma. He bumped into her and held out his hand to steady her.

“Careful there, Miss.” He said in an artificially deep voice.

“Sorry!” Selma said stepping around him.

 

Liam raised his hand to lower his hat further down his face, “You might find yourself sleeping at the center.”

 

Selma had taken a few steps before she realized what Liam had said, she spun around but he was gone. Selma shook her head; was he real or a hallucination her sleep deprived mind created?

 

Selma made it half way into a public library before she felt her knees buckle. She looked down as though the tiled floor could tell her why.

 

“No.” She whispered they’d gotten to her. She reasoned that who ever it was who’d bumped her had probably injected her somehow.

 

Selma ran into the library’s bathroom and washed her pale face. Already her hands were shaking and the world was falling out of focus. She had refused the food the Center had given her knowing it would be drugged and now her refusal to eat would be her down fall.

 

Selma stumbled out of the library and into the cool November air. Finding herself near her old neighbourhood Selma bought a bag full of sugary food from the corner shop. She didn’t smile at the cashier’s joke about the warm weather and sat out on a bench eating the food.

 

To finish off her sugar high Selma took another healthy sip from Jenny’s miracle drink. She tried to ignore the dregs of plant matter floating to the top of the plastic bottle. Selma took deep slow breaths staring long and hard at the shop’s brick wall. She closed her eyes and tried to ‘think’ herself awake.

 

Liam appeared in front of her with his arms crossed his lips were pressed into a firm line. He pressed the palm of his hand to Selma’s forehead and said, ‘You’re really tiered, all you want is for this to end. You just need to take a nap. You just need to relax. Don’t fight me!” Liam sighed and looked at Selma curiously as he pulled something out his pocket.

“No wonder Will likes you so much. You could survive in my world better then anyone.” He said as he opened her drink and dropped in a yellow pill. “I’m sorry no one should have to go there.” He whispered.

Liam bent forward into Selma’s face and gently brushed a strand of hair out of her face before he disappeared.

 

Suddenly Selma’s hands stopped shaking. She opened her eyes and looked around again, Selma smiled she must of built up a tolerance to whatever drug she’d been injected with.

She stood up and froze something she couldn’t put her finger on was different, every fibre in her body screamed danger. Suddenly Selma felt eyes on her but she couldn’t tell who was watching. Everyone looked suspicious.

Selma picked up her drink and walked away, looking for the eyes she knew were watching her.

 

 

The cashier from inside the shop waited until Selma had jogged away before he took the phone out from under the cash register. He held the receiver to his ear using his shoulder while he dialled a number he read off a business card.

 

“Yeah, she was here. She just left.” The cashier said tossing the business card. “I think she’s headed to her Aunt’s house or their clubhouse. Same direction” Then checking his watch he answered, “Yup, I’ll be here.” and hung up the phone.

 

“Can I help you?” He asked turning to the customer who’d been standing next to the drink refrigerator for the last ten minutes. He looked about sixteen and was deciding between an orange cola and a cherry cola. If the cashier hadn’t been so preoccupied with watching Selma jog away he would have asked him sooner.

 

“Yes, actually I think you can.” Liam said turning around he placed both drinks on the counter. For some reason the boy looked familiar to the cashier but he just couldn’t place him to a name or a place.

It annoyed the cashier that the boy had left the refrigerator open and that his hat cast a shadow that hid most of his face. He liked to see whom he was talking to; he resisted the urge to knock his hat off.

 

 “The girl you just sold out is very important to me"for a plan and it would help me if the Center found her after we finish. I’d like you to forget she was ever here. You have no idea who Selma is and you have never seen her before and most importantly you don’t know about the clubhouse”

 

“Sell out? Who are you to speak to me this way?” The cashier growled.

 

“You won’t remember this, so there really is no point in telling you. But your subconscious might hold on to something so just try to keep onto the idea that I’m an ally of Selma’s and she doesn’t deserve to be locked up. She can’t do her part without me helping her a bit.”

 

“Selma is a very sick girl. I’ve just called her doctor. He’ll be here any minute.” The middle-aged man said picking up the receiver again. He looked down to dial the number but suddenly stopped.

 

“Who was I about to call?” He said looking up he finds himself alone in his shop. The counter was clear and the refrigerator was closed. He looked out the window of his shop and shrugged his shoulders putting down the phone’s receiver.

 

The cashier had the sudden craving for soda, but he just couldn’t decide if he wanted cherry or orange. He took both out taking a bill from his wallet he put the two cans behind the counter without opening them.

 

 

 

Selma jogged past familiar roads, houses and trees with her head down until she found an empty lot snuggled between two tidy looking houses.

 

Selma took a deep breath before she stepped into the lot and pushed through the thick underbrush that consumed the back half of the lot. Selma found the wooden fence that bordered her Aunt’s unsold house and followed it to a gate that led to a large shed dozens of feet from the house.

 

It was practically invisible from the house and few people knew where to look. Selma unlatched the small gate and went directly to what the neighbourhood called the clubhouse. It’s where she and her friends had played growing up.

 

This was her secret hide away, her own personal fortress of solitude. This was home. The clubhouse was a brown structure that sat at the back edge of untouched park property. It had one window and large barn doors that made up most of the wall. Selma and her friends had long ago graffiti the walls.

 

 

She could still see the names they’d written in permanent marker on one of the doors. She skipped her own name tracing the names of the four friends who knew the truth:

Will Mikael Kendra Ashley.

Ashley and Mikael, were the only ones who were left. The Center had made sure of that.

Liam appeared beside her as Selma touched the names on the door. He frowned when Selma’s hand hesitated above Will’s name and disappeared when Selma turned in his direction.

 

Selma took out a key from her bag opening the lock that protected the shed from animals and thieves and pulled one of the large doors open. The door opened slowly with a familiar groan.

 

Selma took out the note she’d prepared, the one she’d mail to Ashley when she left Alliance. She tucked it into her journal and sighed crouching next to the leather couch. She felt along the bottom of the couch until she found a tear in the fabric.

 

The tear created a pocket on the underside of the couch so Selma put the journal there in the bottom of the old leather couch to keep it safe in case the Center found her before Jenny did.

Selma felt around the hole for a second letter just to make sure it was still there. It was

 

She uncapped the bottle and finally took the ruinous sip from it. It was a few minutes before Selma felt a wave of exhaustion that nearly knocked her down.

 

 

 

The middle-aged cashier shakes his head. “I don’t know who Selma is. I’ve never seen her before.” He puts down the photograph confidently.

 

“Mr. Bennet on the phone you said she was outside your shop, and that she was headed to her Aunt’s house.” A skinny man in a brown suit says reading from a notebook.

“We have it on tape.” He leans forward in his seat and slides the tape player across a large table to the cashier.

“You can press play if you want to hear your voice again but I think we’ve been over it enough times for you not to bother denying.”

Mr. Bennet shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I don’t know anything about this girl or a clubhouse or anything you’ve asked me.”

 

                    The man in the brown suit shakes his head slowly and watches Mr.Bennet as though his answer would change if he waited long enough. A tall heavy man standing next to the interrogation room’s door stares at Mr. Bennet with an intensity that makes Mr. Bennet uncomfortable.

They sat for several minutes without saying anything until Bennet suddenly breaks the silence, as the man in the brown suit knew he would.

 

“Who are you guys? You aren’t doctors.” Mr. Bennet asks eyeing the man who stood beside the door but he only smiled coldly. Mr. Bennet rubs his sore arms remembering how he was brought in.

 

The man in the brown suit took a deep breath before speaking. “Normally I sit around observing and recording things at this Health Center, they don’t call me by name they call me by my title the Observer. Kind of creepy don’t you think?” The man says smiling faintly.

 

Mr. Bennet frowned and the man continued. “I guess it doesn’t help that I keep my name confidential for legal reasons. Just between you and me, it doesn’t get me any favours with the people who use their names. It’s a trust thing, I guess. I’m the odd one out here but it’s been like that since I was kid. But with us, you know the people on the sidelines that get to know all the secrets that people let slip.” The Observer pauses expectantly.

 

“You have to believe me. I’m telling you the truth.” Mr. Bennet exclaims. The Observer’s face immediately hardens. “But you don’t care about what I normally do, do you? What you need to know is today I’m an investigator, assigned to find Selma by any means necessary. And him” the Observer says jerking his thumb at the man in the dark suit. “We call him Guy and he’s"a doctor of a sort who specializes with people who have Selma’s condition. But I hear he has many skills.”

Guy snickers bleakly and Mr. Bennet gulps, “I don’t know anything.” He mutters looking at Selma’s photo again.

 It was eerie; her face gave Bennet’s mind an itch he could not reach. There was something about her face. He could almost remember her in his shop. But that was impossible; he’d never seen her before.

 

“We’ve checked her Aunt’s house and not only is she not there but it looks like no ones been there for weeks. You mentioned a clubhouse, I need to know where it is.”

“What clubhouse?” Bennet asks exasperated, he couldn’t understand how or why this was happening to him.

The Observer stood up from the stool he sat on revealing himself to be fairly short. He checked his watch; he’d been interrogating for over three hours and was getting nowhere.

Selma had been missing for a little over four hours.

“Mr. Bennett, this is foolhardy. It’s not like we won’t find her; we always find our runaways. You see if I fail to find her, I forfeit a lot more then a finder’s fee, a career or bodily fluid and so will you if you keep lying to me.” He said glancing at the bruise that had begun to spread across Bennet’s cheek.

 

“What I can’t understand is why you would send us on a wild goose chase. I mean it would make us look one way while she ran another, I get that but why are you helping her? I know they can’t be offering you more then we are. At most whatever Selma and who ever is helping her could give you is a half-baked fortune telling.” The Observer walks over to Mr. Bennet and sits on the wide desk in front of him. He glares into Mr. Bennet’s eyes holding his uncomfortable gaze.

 

“Tsk, tsk. We would’ve paid you well, Bennet.” He says putting his hand on the other man’s shoulder and squeezes hard. Mr. Bennet nervously glances at the Observer’s hand but the Observer pulls his face forward with his index finger.

 

 “Playing dumb won’t work for very long. We will find her no matter how far or how fast she runs. It’ll be a lot less painful for you if tell us what you know right now.”

“But I don’t know anything.” Mr. Bennet says pleading with his eyes. ‘He wouldn’t take to physical violence well,’ the Observer noted. He shrugged ‘he should have just told us what he knows.’

 

The Observer sighed, patting Bennet on the cheek roughly. He stood up and straightened his tie. He gave Guy a nod and walked out of the room. He could hear Mr. Bennet scream as the door closed behind him. He had tried to warn the man but some people don’t know what’s good for them.

Reviews

[keyvan]

beautiful....very nice...

[Sara]

Thank you!